Breaking Free
by Juno Fairfax
Summary: Oneshot, character study. Original character, created purely for writing practice. Hope you enjoy it, I would really appreciate constructive criticism.


Disclaimer: I do not own the X-men. If I did, I would have a lot more fun. I do own Lydia, Faron and their twisted family tree.

She had long since grown accustomed to the darkness; the dank, damp stench of mildew. Raising her arms was a near impossible task through the combination of heavy manacles and too little food.

The food, Lydia thought, was all she had to be thankful for, meagre as it was. Stale bread and warm water. Her father left it for her most days, though he tended to forget. Out of desperation she would whisper into his mind, remind him that she was still here, still alive. He didn't like to be reminded, and it often encouraged him to add to her catalogue of cuts and bruises.

Faron stumbled into the kitchen, fumbling for the light. The Williams' boys had cheated him out of all his money at pool, and he had damned near run over a state trooper on his shaky drive home. He pulled a beer from the fridge.

_Please, can I have something to eat?_

Damned kid, he thought. He wondered why he hadn't just thrown her out or sold her to the government. Or a circus.

_If you let me go, you won't have to do this anymore_.

Faron Connor did not particularly enjoy the feeling of his daughter poking around in his head. Not that she had the fight left in her to do anything, but he still got goose bumps every damned time she talked to him like that.

"I'll tell ya why I don't let ya go," he mumbled, on his way to the basement, "'cos I'll be damned if I'm gonna let the world know I got a freak for a daughter!"

Over-cautious, perhaps with a measure of drunken silliness, he made his way down the creaky wooden stairs, flipping on the dim light. Lydia Connor sat where she always sat, heavy chains locking her to the filthy wall. Her long black hair was half-matted, falling loose to her waist. Her fingernails were long, and as he had discovered one day, unbreakable, even with pruning shears. Large, angelic wings curled around her; the feathers were dusty, and some lay on the floor around her. Black wings, like some cursed angel. The day Lydia Connor had been born, her parents knew she was no normal child. It was her eyes; pure black, glittering in the harsh light of the hospital. The doctors were as shocked as the parents, but put the unusual condition down to her mother's increasingly large dope habit. Her mother, a permanently stoned former Texas state beauty queen. Mother Connor left less than a year later, taking Faron's meagre savings and leaving her first-born child in his less than capable hands. Faron had been heartbroken. Baby Lydia found herself in the care of the wives of his various gambling partners and drinking buddies until she was out of diapers and could be shipped off to school for most of the day.

Lydia Connor was a quiet child, eager at school; a great lover of stories and knowledge, her teacher had once said. Most people tended to ignore her, some whispered, some shouted, because no one understood how a normal child could have eyes like that. Some said she could have been a beauty queen, just like Mother Connor, if it weren't for those damned eyes. Over the years she gathered a large collection of books, and was content to wile away the hours reading in her room. If she stepped out of line, Faron Connor simply beat her back into place. She didn't look like him. She didn't look like her mother either. With enough drink, Faron could convince himself that she was a devil child, sent to punish him for his sins. When she was a baby they tried to take her back to the hospital and convince the doctors they had been given the wrong one, but no one else wanted her either. "My family," Faron proclaimed on the way home from the hospital that day, "does not abandon their kin, no matter what may be wrong with 'em. She could turn out just fine, she could end up with blue eyes, just like her momma." Mother Connor's eyes were green, but she was too high to notice her husband's mistake.

Lydia of course, had not turned out fine. She was smart as a whip and damned pretty, but Faron didn't understand what she needed brains for anyway. She spent so much time locked in her room that Faron didn't even notice the changes she began to go through when she was eleven and a half years old. He knew puberty had hit, he could tell just by looking at her. His dinner was on the table when he came home from work; there was no other reason for her to be around after that. He didn't even notice she was hiding away 'til her teacher showed up on his doorstep wondering why Lydia hadn't been at school for the past month. Confused, he went to her room, kicking at her door. Lydia let him in, a bulky jacket worn over her clothes in the heat of Spring. His interrogation was physical, and he hit and pulled and pushed his little daughter until he tore the jacket from her. He stood aghast, jaw wide open. Her thin t-shirt rode up at the back, revealing two small, black feathery appendages sticking out from her shoulder blades. Faron had seen the stories on television and in the weekly magazines; humans with strange powers, like the superheroes from the comics he had read as a kid. Mutants, the government called them. Faron and his buddies preferred the term 'freaks'. Looking at his daughter, he cursed the day she was born. She was terrified, cowering on her knees before him, like a wounded animal. For all his beatings, she had never once smart mouthed him. She took what he give, didn't scream or fight or cry. She just kneeled there, with her head bowed. Faron walked out of the room without a word. After a few hard scotches, he returned to her bedroom, where she still sat silently, took her by the wrist and led her to the basement.

That had been two years ago. He told everyone that she had gone to live with his cousins up in Florida; told them his cousin Leanne couldn't have kids so he gave them his. His friends patted him on the back and told him what a good deed he had done. Lydia was almost fourteen now, her wingspan had grown dramatically to a good ten feet. Her fingernails were now claws, an inch long and sharp as a butcher's knife. He moved her few possessions to the basement, and made a few concessions to comfort and hygiene, but he spent little time down there. He didn't like to think about what he had had to do to one of his own. When she started hearing his mind, and whispering into his thoughts, he found he could not escape her presence. But she was such a quiet, timid little thing, just as scared of what she had become as he was. And so he kept her there, and let alcohol cloud his guilt.

Looking at her now, he refused to feel bad about it. He watched the news, heard bad stories about mutants every day. He was doing the world a favour, keeping her locked up like this.  
_  
_

_If you let me go, you'll never have to see me again. No one will know where I came from. Please…._

He threw the beer bottle straight at her. Luckily he was drunk enough to have horrendous aim, missing her head by a good two feet. "Just what are you going to do about it?" he slurred. "The world will thank me for keeping another one of you freaks off the streets."

_I can hurt you_. Her black eyes were deadly serious.

Faron exploded with spluttering laughter, doubling over until he fell in front of her.

"What are ya gonna do, lil' birdie? You've never fought back. You're like a lil' mouse, all quiet and scared an' filthy. I could beat you for days and you'd never say a wor-"

Faron Connor was frozen in place, limbs locked, brain ten seconds behind. Lydia just stared straight at him.

_You're not going to hit me again. Are you going to let me go? _Her voice tickled the back of his brain. Suddenly he couldn't remember what her real voice sounded like. He wanted to hear it again.

"What did you do to me?" he choked, trying to force his legs to move, to feel anything.

_I can do so much worse._ There was sadness in her expression, but she didn't seem so weak anymore. A flash hit Faron, burning the insides of his eyes.

It felt like a nightmare; the vision was real, and he could end it all if he could just wake up. He was blind, he could feel the harsh linen of the blindfold wrapped tight around his head. The world was deathly silent, he couldn't feel sunlight or wind or any sign of life around him. Something slipped over his head, settling on his shoulders. Faron could feel it begin to tighten, until it pressed tight against his neck.

_Release me._

"…yes.." he struggled to form the words. In the dream his arm moved, his hand searching in his trouser pocket for the keys that felt so damned heavy right now. He dropped them in front of him. He didn't hear them land.

The rope around his neck began to tighten. Faron began to panic as he felt increasing pressure on his windpipe.

Lydia watched him curiously, from her side of the world, he was still frozen in place, now only trembling slightly, his breath fighting the imaginary noose around his neck.

_Do you know what is going to happen to you now, Daddy?_ The last word poured out with vehemence.

In his dream, Faron wanted to move, to claw at his neck and tear off the blindfold. "…what…please…don't hurt me.."

_I never begged, remember? Never fought back. I thought at least you would do the same._

"…please…I don't wanna…"

_Even if I was normal like everyone else, I wouldn't have had much to look forward to. You would have made sure of that. I might not even have much of a life to look forward to now. But I'm not afraid of you anymore. You can't hurt me again.  
_

The ground beneath Faron Connor's feet slipped away, and he dropped only a short distance before the rope around his neck snapped tight. He felt his windpipe crack, tried to struggle. But he was as frozen in the dream as he was in reality, where he choked and spluttered, still kneeling in front of her. Lydia carefully measured her mental manipulation; her control over what she assumed, from the books she had read, was telepathy was not perfect. It was trial and error. She guessed that if her father died in the scenario she had created in his mind, that his physical body would die too.

Lydia was wrong. When Faron Connor was finally strangled in the twisted vision his daughter had created for him, his physical body did not die. The part of his brain that she had been manipulating stopped cold, shocking Lydia with it's sudden emptiness. She released her hold on him, and his body fell to the ground with a thud. Tentatively she reached out to touch his neck. She didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed to feel a pulse.

Lydia collapsed against the wall. The room was spinning, the effort of the activity had been more than body and mind had been capable of. She sat unmoving for a long time, catching her breath, regrouping her scattered thoughts. Faron lay flat on his back, eyes wide open, breath rasping. She poked him in the shoulder with her toe. No response. Calling an ambulance would be a good idea, she thought.

She stood up carefully, her head still light. The chains gave her enough room to stretch her legs, and her wings, and she always tried to move as much as possible. She picked up the keys. The lock was stiff, and she jumped when the heavy chains clattered to the floor. Her arms felt like they were floating without the manacles weighing her down.

With one more look at her prone father, she made her way up the stairs. Lydia had forgotten what the house looked like. She had always spent most of her time in her room, anyway. It was obvious the house had gone to pot; Faron now had no one to cook and clean for him, instead surviving on whatever slop the local bar was serving. There was little food, well, there was little food without mould on it. She found some fresh bread, buttered it and swallowed it down greedily. Her next stop was the shower. The very thought of it made her skin tingle in excitement, and she stood under the hot water for a full half hour, covering herself with thick suds, washing her hair three times.

Lydia felt fresh and clean, and luxuriated in the sensation and the delicious scent of soap. Her bedroom was mostly empty; her books had been moved to the basement, where she would spend her entire day reading. All that was left were her clothes, which even without the cumbersome wings would not fit her. She had modified a few tops while in her prison, but even they no longer fit her. She went to Faron's bedroom. Mother Connor had left a few bits and pieces; Faron had been too devastated to throw out anything she had left behind. Lydia found a stretchy, strappy top that buttoned at the front. It was low-cut enough at the back to allow for her wings, though a little baggy across the chest. The jeans she found were a little wide in the hips and long in the leg. The trainers were a size too big, but she looked as normal as she could hope. She began to pack a bag, taking only a few more items of clothes, some hygiene essentials, an old doll that she had clung to as a child, and downstairs she packed what little food she could find.

Lydia Connor was free at last, and she had absolutely no idea where she was going.

The sun was coming up. She couldn't leave the house until it was dark. Faron Connor's current health problems would just have to wait. Lydia spent the day watching television and testing her wings. Her destination was still unknown, but she would have to fly to get there. It was difficult, and there wasn't much room in the house, but she would have to wait until nightfall for the moment of truth.

A news story on the television caught her attention. "The Government today announced new plans to deal with the mutant problem, after a massive mutant attack took place in Westchester, New York….Westchester is home to Professor Charles Xavier, a well-known advocate of mutant/human co-habitation…."

A picture of the man in question appeared onscreen. He didn't look like a mutant, but perhaps not all of them were as freakish as she was. Maybe he was human. But his eyes looked kind, she could trust those eyes. If he truly supported mutants, then he was the man to help her. Westchester would be her destination.

Nightfall came. Faron still breathed, eyes open and dry and unmoving. She felt nothing as she looked at him. She didn't feel guilty, or righteous, or angry. She couldn't feel for him. Before she left the house, she called an ambulance, claiming to be a female friend who had found poor Faron comatose in the basement. Lydia climbed to the roof, took off, and set her course for Westchester.

Lydia Connor was fourteen years old. Her father spent the rest of his life as a vegetable. She landed in Westchester three days later, and quickly located the home of the professor.

She knocked on the door at twilight, tired, hungry and sore. An attractive red-headed woman answered the door, and smiled at her. "Can I help you?" she asked.

"I've come to see Professor Charles Xavier." She felt the red head prodding gently in her head, and so Lydia spoke calmly, Please, I just need somewhere to stay. I have no home, no family.

The red-head, whose name was Jean, beamed at her. "You've come to the right place. You'll be safe here."

Those were the words Lydia Connor had been waiting to hear her whole life.


End file.
